Airsoft

Seeing as how I’m a citizen of Northern Ireland, it’s extremely difficult to legally own weapons (though this law strangely doesn’t seem to affect the ability of the terrorists in this country from getting their hands on handguns, AKs, .50 cal rifles and even RPGs). Shooting is a pastime that I greatly enjoy and when the spring and summer eventually come round I’ll be doing a bit of plinking in my backyard with my airsoft guns. As yet I haven’t really taken to the “sport”- although running round the woods with a battery powered full-auto airsoft gun sounds like incredibly good fun. No, for now I’ll stick to a bit of relaxing target shooting. I have two airsoft weapons at the moment, a gas powered KSC Glock 17 (cheap and plentiful) and a Tokyo Marui VSR-10- a bolt action springer.

(Airsoft comes in three different flavours- AEGs which are electric; Gas, which use bottled gas injected into a reservoir into the gun to, usually, fire the BB and move the slide; and Springers, which require the gun to be manually cocked for each shot).

The Glock is a lot of fun to shoot, so much so that my other half bought herself a G18C which can also be fired full auto. It’s an awful lot of fun to shoot, though it’s a dreadful drain on my BB supply. However, what I really like to do is to get out with the VSR-10, lay down on a mat and take aim at a number of targets scattered across the bottom of my garden. My only complaint about the VSR-10 is that the sights are a bit crude- the rear aperture is too wide. A scope can be mounted to it, but for now I’m happy enough with my ability to knock little holes into bits of paper as it is. The great thing about airsoft is that it’s so inexpensive; the guns are priced way too high in the UK but I got mine shipped from Hong Kong- and if you’re using a springer then all you need to pay for are big bags of BBs. It’s also ideal for the backyard- not too noisy and best at smaller ranges.